A crescendo gone the way of sunset transfigures the sensual dusk into a wearying ostinato. Flattened wings flap a rhetoric’s breeze, its lapidary promises empty lapping against a shore of hoped-for ripples

through shutters lapping in the wind sunsets breeze their nectar over water pulsing the promise of touch & music

whose lapidary whispers mingle on their turning dusk

-10-

Departing Words

Evening trees sway quiet melodies. Their soft breath breezes the day— a memory of slow dawns, azure follies, dusky sunsets— to night’s promise: the shadow across the table grandly sapping her nectar dreams. It seems so simple, this overture bridging

the distant span, a reach too far for touch to breach fenestral reflections, the pain of their shared solitude. An etude practiced to memory, or ostinato, leads over the water’s lapping obligato. Tapestries remembered

— a rippling dread— suddenly thread the urge to crescendo: a lapidary grin intones the music that gives pulse to wings politely rising toward their lone window.

Nectar rides the morning breeze, a moonflight from dawn, its shadowed breath the scent of a faint ostinato gone lapping across dormant follies repetitive as water’s ripples in a vacant tide.

The lapidary fascination of wings tapestries the sky. A glimmer of azure glows from ground toward sunset.

Fenestral contemplations of dusk’s remembrance echo the pulse of the distant overture approaching on a slow crescendo.

Ripples of fading music water the coming touch

-26-

Lost Songs Remembered

Polytonal sunsets ring lost songs where distant azure played remembered tapestries. Fenestral memories turn dusk. Reveries on husking wings taste crescendo’s dawn as nectar. Old music ripples its slow ostinato: a soft hand’s touch under the shadow music’s low pulse, a past breeze lapping the water to a murmur lapidary as the overture’s tableau.

-27-

Matinee Idyll

Avocado lunch renditions shadow the siesta tapestries

breezing fenestral beneath the summer fan.

Its air ripples stale currents fresh against the heat’s pungent ostinato rippling sidewalks. Dreams of azure

The freed obligato’s hue bleeds azure through the sunset’s breeze. A tapestry of fresh breath awaits,

the fenestral dawn from a distant past lingering on.

The touch of shading dusk promises nectar as the last sunset streaks gray to shadow where the secret waits.

The lapidary ostinato shading its pulse wings rippling over water’s mirror, pulses the music lapping tide

to touch, a distance breached with the crescendo of its overture

-34-

Nocturne

The melody enters, slowly, distant as dawn’s first shadow and azure’s later fade

to sunset tapestries splashed purple before the lapping dusk.

Its music glitters, lapidary as the summer day’s long promise of night.

When moon songs ripple fenestral anticipation of overture’s touch,

water whispers nectar, and breezing wings tease the flesh from its waiting breath to the ostinato’s pulsing crescendo

-35-

Nothing Better Than Nothing

An azure tapestry shadows the torpor’s innuendo. Fenestral agonies seethe at sunset’s dawn. Dusk speaks: a lapping tongue reeks its charm. The music ripples like the flapping touch of leather wings advancing against resistant nectar. A hectoring pace, his ostinato. Thoughts of water crescendo lapidary dreams on the breeze that distances her pulse from an overture on the wrong night.

The indelible ostinato feathers its fenestral breeze, an innuendo from azures past.

Tapestries linger under lapping sunsets. Sky’s last wings fly to shadow & memories of dusk. The coming darkness ripples, its own crescendo

the dawn: a constant, waiting, to touch the water’s lapidary overture, its distant pulse a music of nectar jeweling sun

-39-

Past Melodies Present

The longing ostinato ripples toward the concert of a wayward sea clinging to past crescendos that breeze fenestral through azure shadowing to sunset. At dusk, its shore’s last wings flap their tapestries toward a distant dawn. The water lapping below the crescent overture grows distant as night’s lazy pulse of breeze. The lapidary nectar eases back from touch, its promise betrayed in the measure of hidden music.

no closer than memory’s cold ripples dare. The lapidary shadow there slows the tense, lingering pulse

to a willful declaration of dusk over water,

the music’s feathered breeze fading under sunset’s distant overture

-51-

The Moment

Its pulse flashes past the eye, ripples too quick for tapestries to frame azure’s dawn in fenestral breezes, or ease dusk’s shadow into sunset. Moon’s nectar wings touch water at the nearing horizon. Music whispers its lapidary ostinato, a distant crescendo lapping home the evening’s ringing overture.

-52-

The Promise of Anticipation

Umbrella wings unveil the fold of sun flashing ripples over azure waves. The scent of water rides a lazy breeze, an ostinato of afternoon tapestries lapping hints of nectar overtures: a touch at sunset sliding past dusk’s shadow rides dawn’s wings pulses to crescendo with the lapidary music playing less distant than memories of fenestral gazing

a token gesture, taken as rapture, and the shuttered laughter over the crescendo of the tide no measure The water music ripples its distant pulse a breeze lapping ostinato foreplay taken or delayed

one touch removed

-58-

Vernon Frazer has published eight books of poetry and three books of fiction. His work has appeared in Aught, Big Bridge, First Intensity, Jack Magazine, Lost and Found Times, Moria, Miami SunPost, Muse Apprentice Guild, Sidereality, Xstream and many other literary magazines. His web site is http://vernonfrazer.com. His most recent works are the longpoems Avenue Noir and IMPROVISATIONS, the now-completed work which he introduced in his 2001 reading at the Poetry Project. Frazer is married and lives in South Florida.

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